“The train leaves the station quickly and never returns.”

read time: 10 minutes

Persona: Troubled Tai

Who is Troubled Tai? He’s a university student who struggles to wrangle his attention for coursework. Tai wants desperately to complete assignments on time, in order to feel less stress about homework and less guilt from falling into a “wasteland” of distractions. To do this, he believes he needs to focus better.

What stands in his way? Troubled Tai has tried everything from site blockers to Pomodoro timers to accountability buddies. He takes tips from neurodivergent communities, primarily the ADHD section of TikTok, but continues to succumb to the first distraction, falling into subsequent hours of scrolling on his favorite social media. He says, “The train leaves the station quickly and never returns.”

Although study rooms and clean desks don’t work, he’s found that sometimes what does work is attending office hours as “designated homework hours.” No tool or aid has been more effective than going and gamifying “getting attention from the TA’s.”

Troubled Tai’s Journey Mapping

The Scenario: Troubled Tai needs to finish an assignment by a hard deadline. He wants to complete the assignment without feeling too guilty about wasting time, and ultimately without missing his deadline.

The Journey: Troubled Tai has two things on his mind: the deadline, and his perceived progress. This is a marathon of morale for him. In the first half, Tai uses all the tools available to him. He moves to a study room, blocks his websites, surrounds himself with working people, and makes sure he has plenty of energy. Each of these tools has a marginal effect, and gets him a little closer to completion. He employs his greatest tool, attending office hours.

At the halfway point, paths diverge. Tai has either made “a decent amount of progress” or feels like he’s getting behind. Each of these momentums are the deciding factor, and Tai either

1. procrastinates to avoid these negative feelings of falling behind and does not make the incremental progress necessary to turn in his assignment or

2. is reassured by his good work and continues to use the marginally useful tools available to him.

The Insights: Troubled Tai’s two paths are very similar before the midpoint. There are marginal successes and some setbacks. But the midpoint decides everything: Will Tai continue to make steady progress, or will he let his anxiety around failure creep in?

Although this “sufficient progress” benchmark is imaginary, it’s extremely important for Tai’s morale. Intervening before this critical point may help Tai to continue down a favorable path. The question is, what might be the right behavior interventions that could help give him this boost?